Citation/Abstract

An application-independent cryptography model that is easy to use for all level users

Cryptography libraries are inflexible and difficult for developers to integrate with their applications. These difficulties are often encountered by applications, like PGP, which are non-intuitive for end-users and are often used improperly or not at all. This thesis discusses the negative impact of the current prevailing poor usability on adequate security utilization. To alleviate these problems, we develop an infrastructure that moves cryptography directly into the Operating System rather than the current application-layer approach. We introduce and define a new general-purpose network cryptography capability that integrates directly with the Operating System. We also introduce new Internet infrastructure, the Encryption Key System (EKS), which is proposed to be capable of transmitting encrypted material securely and easily. This research enables flexible cryptography that is easy to adopt because it can be used with the sockets interface, which developers are already familiar with, in addition to creating a general cryptography capability that can evolve into a library that can be used in network and non-network situations. The results of this research will allow developers to focus on application usability rather than struggle with the learning curve required to properly use a specific cryptography library as required by current practices. Our expected contributions will also allow novel approaches to system scalability, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), and Virtual Private Networks (VPN) technology.